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Harriet has really progressed into more imaginative play over the past few weeks. The above picture shows Harriet in her beloved "bucket" (a turquoise plastic gardening tub, to be precise) with her pillow and blanket. She is pretending like it is her bed. Sometimes she pretends like she is sleeping, complete with snoring noises, but she keeps her eyes open lest we fall prey to her trickiness and think that she is actually asleep. Harriet puts everything useful into the bucket. Today her yellow plastic table is in the bucket. I don't really know why it is so exciting to sit on top of the table inside the bucket, but there you go. Maybe layers of toys are just better?
In addition to the bucket infatuation, Harriet is also recently attached to these Wiggles slippers. She found them at her grandparents' house yesterday, the slippers having once belonged to a Small Aunt, and she flat out refuses to remove them from her feet. She calls them her silly shoes and giggles rather ridiculously as she putters around the house. She even had to wear them over her real shoes into the grocery store. (I win major mom-props for that, okay?) As you can see, Harriet suffers from a rather rambunctious case of bedhead no matter the time of day. This has to be from the Rodgers gene pool. It has to.
The other great excitement has been the gifting of a Tunnel from her Rodgerian grandparents. This tunnel is actually part of a lovely indoor/outdoor tent situation, but Harriet just likes the tunnel. In fact, she greets it every time she comes into the room and cries when Steve puts it away. Harriet likes to sit and read books in her tunnel, crawl through it quickly and make loud screaming noises, and attempt to get Flori to go through the tunnel on command.
If I could sum up Harriet in one word it would be: BUSY. It seems like the only time this kid will stop moving is when she is watching Timmy Time, but even then I will glance over at her and see her little foot tapping in time to the theme music. She is also very quick to point out when anything isn't right. She repeatedly announces when things are "broken" or "stuck" or "yuck" or "messy." Sometimes she makes the mess and then loudly says, "MOMMY! MESSY!" while pointing to the disaster. Tonight's unfortunate pooping in the bathtub episode was rather traumatizing, however. It was definitely a "yuck."
A fun mess to make is helping Mommy cook. Harriet sits very safely on the counter and eagerly helps me "dump" whatever ingredients I need into a bowl or pot. Today we made oatmeal cookies and I was glad the recipe called for applesauce instead of eggs.
I'm trying to be more intentional about our afternoons. Harriet usually just chills in the morning and does her own thing or helps me with chores and errands. But the afternoons can get rather testy if we don't have a plan. Thankfully, the weather has been super duper nice lately, so our afternoons usually involve some outside time. But when we can't do that, Harriet and I like to do some crafting. Her fine-motor skills are astounding. She can accurately stick foam shapes onto surfaces like this Valentine's Day card that she made for her Granmom. She is also really good at stringing beads onto pipe cleaners. That is my new favorite non-messy activity.
Harriet doesn't really know what to do about the idea of a Baby E yet, and I don't expect her to. As clever as she is, it is impossible to explain the abstract concept of a Baby Edmund coming out of Mommy's tummy. She doesn't even try to repeat my warm preparatory remarks. She just looks at me like I'm crazy. We pulled out all of E's clothing this evening to take inventory and she kept saying, "Edmund's suit!" So I guess she'll be prepared to dress him.
Just a few more weeks of it being Only Harriet. I hope we can make the most of it.
